OSCurrency Joins Internet of Ownership Project Council

(New York, NY) A collaboration between OSCurrency and Internet of Ownership (IoO) shows promise for further developments in the area of mutual credit, cooperative ownership, open source software, and innovative partnerships.

OSCurrency is a mutual credit platform that complements the current banking system. Users can make a payment with a combination of money, time, or trade dollars. Bringing communities together with an exchange of services rather than just a monetary payment is the goal for using OSCurrency, also known as Open Source Currency. Project lead Amy Kirschner, also of Vermont Resilience Lab, will represent OSCurrency on the IoO Council.

“Connecting with the Internet of Ownership project is a natural fit for OSCurrency.”, said Amy Kirschner, “we look forward to participating and supporting the whole open-source platform community.”

The Internet of Ownership supports community-based platform co-ops. Platforms and applications connect people with each other, but at a great cost. Personal information is sold, labor platforms avoid the important benefits of sick pay and health insurance, and users do not have control over what the platforms do with their information. Combining a platform with a cooperative promotes power given to the people, not to large conglomerate companies.

“At a time when interest in alternative currencies is at a high, the OSCurrency approach is refreshingly community-based. It’s a fantastic project to help us build the Internet of Ownership, a network building infrastructure for a more cooperative online economy,” noted Nathan Schneider, one of the IoO founders and a professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The Internet of Ownership has created the first directory of startups and organizations in the “platform co-op” ecosystem—an online economy grounded in ownership by workers and users. It also anchored a widely publicized “#BuyTwitter” campaign to democratize the popular social media platform.

Supporting alternative payment options with people-driven platforms creates a whole new arena of community-based initiatives to support ethical business practices. The collaboration of OSC and IoO brings currency alternatives and cooperative community-based principles together in a powerful combination to challenge the status quo. A movement towards supporting small business and local trading helps communities to thrive. “People before profits” is part of the IoO’s ethos that strengthens a community as a whole.

Nathan Schneider
The Internet of Ownership
University of Colorado Boulder
nathan.schneider@colorado.edu

OSCurrency is a user-driven, open source platform for producing mutual credit marketplaces that help communities and cooperatives build their own local economies and connect with other mutual credit economies. Since 2007, open source activists, developers, community and business leaders have worked collaboratively to build a codebase that allows communities and cooperatives to build their own economies based on the principles of mutual credit. Currently, there are OSCurrency applications being used in business trade networks and time banks internationally. The OSCurrency network overview is at http://www.oscurrency.org and contributions can be made via Open Collective at https://opencollective.com/oscurrency.

The Internet of Ownership is a resource for the emerging online democratic economy. Its purpose is to advance platform cooperativism—a vision for online platforms that share democratic ownership and governance among the people who rely on them, especially those who contribute their labor and personal data. To learn more or get involved, visit: https://ioo.coop